Afghanistan After 14 Years: Short of a Hail Mary, Time to Pack It In…..

“Last week, President Donald Trump’s senior Cabinet officials and top national security advisers met for a contentious meeting to finally agree on a new strategy for America’s longest war. After months of wrangling, they would ask Trump for a modest troop increase and a more intense commitment to the seemingly endless struggle in Afghanistan. But the session of the National Security Council Principals Committee, described by two sources briefed on it as a “s*** show” that featured what a third source, a senior White House official, confirmed was a heated debate where “words were exchanged,” proved no more successful than months’ worth of previous Afghan policy debates…….”

If you can’t win a foreign war in a faraway land against an under-armed unsophisticated enemy for 14 years, what does that mean?It means either you had no original goal to start with, OR that you overlooked your original goal of that war, WTF it was. That it is time to pull out of an unwinnable war.

The Greeks spent less time than that trying to defeat the Trojans, and they gave up, except for one last Hail Mary, one last Parthian (or Persian) Shot. That Hail Mary with the wooden horse (it came long before Mary) worked! It almost certainly worked because the Trojans were stupid! Snatching defeat out of a wooden horse’s ass at your moment of victory is a certain sign of stupidity.

So, unless Trump and his advisers have an equivalent to that ancient Greek Hail Mary, and given that Al Qaeda are out of Afghanistan, it is time to get out.